Latino Daily News

Colombian President Santos Enters Hospital For Cancer Surgery

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos checked into a Bogota university hospital Wednesday morning to undergo surgery for prostate cancer.

“Entering the clinic. I’m optimistic. With God’s intervention, everything will go well,” Santos said in a Twitter posting.

“My deepest thanks for all your support,” Santos said.

The president arrived around 6:20 a.m. (1120 GMT) at the Santa Fe Foundation hospital in Bogota, accompanied by first lady Maria Clemencia de Santos and their daughter, Maria Antonia Santos.

Santos was received outside the hospital by Dr. Felipe Gomez, his urologist and the physician who diagnosed his illness and recommended he undergo surgery to remove the prostate gland.

The two-hour operation has a 97 percent success rate, according to Gomez, who said Tuesday that Santos would only require local anesthesia and will therefore be conscious during the procedure, which began around 7:00 a.m.

Santos is to be hospitalized for two or three days.

The 61-year-old Santos said in an address broadcast Monday on radio and television that the cancer was detected by means of a biopsy.

Santos said before making a brief trip to Lima for a summit of South American and Arab countries that the tumor was small, non-aggressive and restricted to the prostate gland.